Child and adolescent homicide

Abstract

Murders committed by children invariably arouse feelings of shock and dismay, and elicit probing questions about the social, psychological, or even biological factors that might account for such a tragic phenomenon. Yet efforts to characterize the adolescent murderer” or the child killer” are futile in light of the diversity of homicidal youth, which it must be emphasized is a legal rather than a scientific category. Apart from the victim’s fatality and the youthfulness of the perpetrator, homicides by juveniles defy a single common explanation. Consider the following case examples: 17-year-old Michael goes cruising with friends through a poor urban neighborhood, looking for persons to rob. It is winter and the youth needs a new coat. They confront a young man wearing an attractive leather coat. When the man refuses to give up his coat, a struggle ensues, and Michael pulls out a pistol and shoots him. 15-year-old Anna has been sexually molested and forcibly raped by her stepfather on a regular basis for nearly a year. Her mother has been physically and emotionally abusive for as long as she can remember. One night after an argument with her parents, Anna creeps into their bedroom and shoots them both in their sleep. 16-year-old Travis hears voices telling him to “kill the devil” and fatally shoots a neighbor.